Born in New York City, Cortelyou worked for the United States Postal Service, earning the attention of Postmaster GeneralWilson S. Bissell. On Bissell's recommendation, President Cleveland hired Cortelyou as his chief clerk. On Cleveland's recommendation, McKinley hired Cortelyou as his personal secretary. After McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt asked Cortelyou to lead an effort to reorganize the White House.

Impressed by Cortelyou's performance, Roosevelt appointed Cortelyou to the position of United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor in 1903. He left that position in 1904 to become the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and starting in 1905 he also served as the Postmaster General. He left both of those positions to become the United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1907. In that position, he worked to keep the economy stable during the Panic of 1907. After Roosevelt left office in 1909, Cortelyou became president of the Consolidated Gas Company. He died in 1940.

In 1891, he obtained a position as secretary to the chief postal inspector of New York. The following year a promotion led to a job as the secretary to the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General in Washington, D.C. In 1895 President Grover Cleveland hired Cortelyou as his chief clerk on the recommendation of Postmaster General Wilson S. Bissell. Cleveland recommended him as a personal secretary to his successor, William McKinley. Cortelyou was working on improvements in office efficiency in 1901, when President McKinley was assassinated.

McKinley was greeting visitors in the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo, New York, when he was shot twice at close range by lone assassin Leon Czolgosz. As McKinley collapsed, he was caught and supported by his aides, among them Cortelyou. As he was held in their arms, he whispered, "My wife... be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her. Oh, be careful."

After succeeding as President, Theodore Roosevelt tasked Cortelyou with transforming the White House into a more professional organization. Cortelyou developed procedures and rules that guided White House protocol and established processes for which there had been only personal prerogative. Cortelyou is also credited with establishing an improved line of communication between the President's office and the press; he provided reporters with their own workspace, briefed journalists on notable news and handed out press releases. Cortelyou is credited with instituting the first systematic gathering of press commentary for a sitting president's perusal. The "current clippings" were the first attempt by a president to gauge public opinion by the media. Cortelyou selected items objectively, a practice that would not be consistently followed by his successors.

Cortelyou served as the Secretary of the Treasury, from March 4, 1907 to March 7, 1909. This was during the devastating Panic of 1907. Like his predecessor, Leslie M. Shaw, Cortelyou believed it was Treasury's duty to protect the banking system, but he realized that the Treasury was not equipped to maintain economic stability. He eased the crisis by depositing large amounts of government funds in national banks and buying government bonds. To prevent further crises, Cortelyou advocated a more elastic currency and recommended the creation of a central banking system.

In 1908, the Aldrich-Vreeland Act was passed, providing special currency to be issued in times of panic, and creating a commission, which led to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

Later life, death, and legacy

He returned to private enterprise as the president of the Consolidated Gas Company, later known as the Consolidated Edison. He was also one of the chairmen of the Con Edison Energy Museum, which is now closed. He lived at his home "Harbor Lights" in Halesite Long Island, New York, until his death in October 1940. Edith Roosevelt attended the wake at his home, as she was a best friend of his wife. He is buried at the Memorial Cemetery of St. John's Church in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Cortelyou, an unincorporated community in Washington County, Alabama, changed its name from Richardson to Cortelyou while George Cortelyou was United States Postmaster General.[2]

The 1908 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago Coliseum, Chicago, Illinois on June 16 to June 19, 1908. It convened to nominate a successor to the popular GOP President, Theodore Roosevelt and his Vice President, Charles W. Fairbanks.

U.S. Secretary of War William H. Taft of Ohio won Roosevelt's endorsement and received the nomination. The convention nominated New York Representative James S. Sherman to be his running mate.

On September 6, 1901, William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York. He was shaking hands with the public when Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot him twice in the abdomen. McKinley died eight days later on September 14 of gangrene caused by the gunshot wounds. He was the third American president to have been assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James A. Garfield in 1881.

McKinley had been elected for a second term in 1900. He enjoyed meeting the public, and was reluctant to accept the security available to his office. Secretary to the President George B. Cortelyou feared that an assassination attempt would take place during a visit to the Temple of Music and took it off the schedule twice. McKinley restored it each time.

Czolgosz had lost his job during the economic Panic of 1893 and turned to anarchism, a political philosophy adhered to by recent killers of foreign leaders. Regarding McKinley as a symbol of oppression, Czolgosz was convinced that it was his duty as an anarchist to kill him. Unable to get near the President during the presidential visit earlier, Czolgosz shot McKinley twice as the President reached to shake his hand in the reception line at the temple. One bullet grazed McKinley; the other entered his abdomen and was never found.

McKinley initially appeared to be recovering, but took a turn for the worse on September 13 as his wounds became gangrenous, and died early the next morning; Vice President Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him. After McKinley's assassination, for which Czolgosz was sentenced to death in the electric chair, Congress passed legislation to officially charge the Secret Service with the responsibility for protecting the President.

Frank Aleamon Leach (August 19, 1846 – June 19, 1929) was a United States newspaperman who was Director of the United States Mint from 1906 to 1909. In the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the heroic efforts by Frank A. Leach and his men preserved the old San Francisco Mint building and the bullion that then backed the nation's currency.

Franklin MacVeagh (November 22, 1837 – July 6, 1934) was an American politician, lawyer, grocer and banker. He served as the United States Secretary of the Treasury under President William Howard Taft.

George von Lengerke Meyer (June 24, 1858 – March 9, 1918) was a Massachusetts businessman and politician who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, as United States ambassador to Italy and Russia, as United States Postmaster General from 1907 to 1909 during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt and United States Secretary of the Navy from 1909 to 1913 during the administration of President William Howard Taft.

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For other people with the same name, see Henry Payne.Henry Clay Payne (November 23, 1843 – October 4, 1904) was U.S. Postmaster General from 1902 to 1904 under Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. He died in office and was buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was also a chairman of the Republican National Committee.

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The United States Department of Commerce and Labor was a short-lived Cabinet department of the United States government, which was concerned with controlling the excesses of big business.

It was created on February 14, 1903, during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. Investigations were the province of its Bureau of Corporations. The department was renamed the Department of Commerce on March 4, 1913, and its bureaus and agencies specializing in labor were transferred to the new Department of Labor. In 1915, the Bureau of Corporations was spun off as an independent agency, the Federal Trade Commission

The United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor was the head of the department. The secretary was a member of the President's Cabinet. Corresponding with the division of the department in 1913, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor's position was divided into separate positions of United States Secretary of Commerce and United States Secretary of Labor.

In 2011, in response to federal budget-cutting efforts, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), sponsored S. 1116, a proposal to re-combine two departments as the "Department of Commerce and the Workforce". To date no action on this proposal has been taken beyond referral to committee.

Victor Howard Metcalf (October 10, 1853 – February 20, 1936) was an American politician; he served in President Theodore Roosevelt's cabinet an Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and then as Secretary of the Navy.

The White House Chief of Staff position is the successor to the earlier role of the President's private secretary. The role was formalized as the Assistant to the President in 1946 and acquired its current title in 1961. The current official title is Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff.

The Chief of Staff is a political appointee of the President who does not require Senate confirmation, and who serves at the pleasure of the President. While not a legally required role, all presidents since Harry Truman have appointed chiefs of staff.

In the administration of Donald Trump, the current acting Chief of Staff is Mick Mulvaney, who succeeded John Kelly on January 2, 2019, who himself had replaced Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff on July 31, 2017. On December 8, 2018, President Trump announced that Kelly would be stepping down from his post by the end of the year. On December 14, Trump announced on Twitter that OMB director Mick Mulvaney would become the new acting Chief of Staff.

William Loeb Jr. (October 9, 1866 – September 19, 1937) was an American political figure. He was the Presidential secretary to President Theodore Roosevelt and Collector of the Port of New York from 1909 to 1913. He was the father to William Loeb III, the conservative publisher of the Manchester Union Leader.

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